도손 말년연구-1940년 전후의 시대인식-

Abstract

Away from his own personal matters, Towson in his 60s began to express his own ideas on a variety of issues about nation and society as a prestigious writer and a respectable social leader. Until the late 1930s, Towson supported cosmopolitanism, arguing that Japan should open its door to the world more widely. However, after his trip to South America for the purpose of attending The International Pen Conference(1936~1937), he began to show changes of his view. Towson felt his forgotten love for his country again after witnessing international tendency in which a range of ideologies swayed even literature at the international conference. Before and after 1940, Towson began to accept both ‘Nationalism’ and ‘Cosmopolitanism,’ which seem contradictory. Especially, his later works such as 『Chikara Mochi(力餠)』and 『Writer's Note of Tōhō no mon (東方の門 The Gate to the East)』show this change remarkably. Over time, Towson acknowledged and accepted even more various circumstances, which was outstanding in his newspaper editorials and speeches published after he became a member of The Imperial Art Academy in 1940. Even though he wrote some patriotic poems to glorify and encourage a war, he also strongly criticized the long war which made people tired. These contradictory writings were repeatedly published around those times. To sum up, Towson expressed his thought and arguments before and after 1940, depending on the situations regardless of ideas dan ideologies. Though he is sometimes criticized for being opportunistic for survival in times of media censorship, he by no means did it only for himself. Instead, Towson in his later years, just before his death due to his illness, tried to deliver his instructions for life earned through many wars he experienced for long years to people who had a weary life. The instructions he tried to deliver were to acknowledge and accept all with generous viewpoints regardless of ideologies.